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Former Xinjiang prisoner arrives in U.S. as key witness to abuses

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Re: Former Xinjiang prisoner arrives in U.S. as key witness to abuses

#191

Post by cute_boi »

wickedsickeune wrote: post #153
naoqj wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it’s normal to ask questions: if nothing has ever happened to the US for similar abuses, why should something happen to any other countries?

I wonder why you would think that it's normal. If something is unjust it should be prosecuted, regardless of the past. There will always be criminals who get away with crimes, this doesn't mean that we should give up.

But, if one criminal always gets away, I think many criminals will use that as a justification to commit atrocities.

That's why fair assessment is required. And, I personally think US & UK have no rights to teach other about humanity. They are currently pointing atrocities in China to forward their political agenda, not for humanitarian cause. Countries like Sweden & Switzerland are in better position to lecture other other countries regarding peace & harmony.

Re: Former Xinjiang prisoner arrives in U.S. as key witness to abuses

#192

Post by trasz »

BobbyJo wrote: post #169
lenkite wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My point was that didn't happen. If we were putting people there solely for their religion and ethnicity, it'd be much more than a thousand. It would be millions... like in Xinjiang. Tens of thousands passed through Abu Ghraib too in Iraq. A truckload of torture and prisoner abuse done to people of only ONE ethnicity. People lost limbs in prison. No one in the US administration paid for these crimes against humanit…

> Tens of thousands passed through Abu Ghraib too in Iraq. A truckload of torture and prisoner abuse done to people of only ONE ethnicity. If we put Iraqis in prison because of their religion and ethnicity, there would have been millions locked up. In Xinjiang, people are put in camps because of their religion and ethnicity, that's why millions are locked up. Key word: because > Some folks in the US govt who were in…

>If we put Iraqis in prison because of their religion and ethnicity, there would have been millions locked up

Oh, but you only put there those that you didn't kill in the first place. China, on the other hand, isn't exterminating those people up front.

Re: Former Xinjiang prisoner arrives in U.S. as key witness to abuses

#193

Post by tablespoon »

cabirum wrote: post #132
danielheath wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a refutation. You aren't replying to an attempt to refute something. You're replying to an expression of shock at the behavior on display (specifically, people claiming - in a thread about Chinese torture camps - that we should not talk about them, because we weren't talking about American torture camps, so it would be hypocritical to talk about the Chinese ones). I'm generally in agreement that this isn't g…

A post about Chinese torture camps makes an impression that torture camps are exclusively a Chinese thing. It would be fair to mention other countries involved in similar behavior. The post could have been "torture camps are bad" piece. It is instead focuses on "China is bad" propaganda

> A post about Chinese torture camps makes an impression that torture camps are exclusively a Chinese thing.

No it doesn't.

> It would be fair to mention other countries involved in similar behavior.

That would be exceedingly impractical. Must every discussion anything contain mention of every thing someone things is similar? No of course not, that's pure distraction.

How fair do you think it is to the Uyghurs that any discussion of their plight must turn into an obsessive digression about the US?

Re: Former Xinjiang prisoner arrives in U.S. as key witness to abuses

#194

Post by lr4444lr »

trasz wrote: post #179
adventured wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The incarceration rate is around 5 times that of China You have no idea what the incarceration rate is in China in fact - part the charm of the zero human rights modern China, which is itself an authoritarian prison state - and their supposed official figure does not include millions of Uyghurs.

So you have no problem trusting statistics from a warmongering country with world's highest incarceration rate, and very obvious racial skew among those imprisoned (those fortunate enough to not be shot on the street by police), but you up front assume that it's the Chinese statistics that can't be trusted.

Please, tell us all the FOIA equivalent in China, and the laws protecting freedom of the press to promulgate that data.

Re: Former Xinjiang prisoner arrives in U.S. as key witness to abuses

#195

Post by fps_doug »

adventured wrote: post #138
fps_doug wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, you deliberately placed the goal posts as such that they exactly put the US on the moral high ground.

The US did have the moral high ground, which is a remarkable thing given what we're talking about: that's how horrific what China is doing is. Were the Japanese released from that internment? Yes. Were they genocided? No. Were they stripped of their culture, heritage, social lives, and tortured for decades due to their beliefs? No. Does the US today recognize the Japanese internment as a moral crime? Yes. That last o…

I won't argue with that. The US has vastly improved in that regard over the last 70 years (or however far you want to go back), or the West in general, and could be considered ahead in many ways. However, if you want to put yourself on that high ground, it always comes across rather weird if you add overly specific inb4's. And actually, I think "well at least we can openly call out our government for having done fucked up shit even though nobody in charge will get prosecuted" is kinda rather a sad state of affairs too.

As a side node/regarding initial topic, I also really dislike the quick jump to "whataboutism" to try and kill off any form of discussion that draws parallels and comparisons with other countries (or, to anything else more generally). Because this is unfortunately how it mostly gets used today.

Re: Former Xinjiang prisoner arrives in U.S. as key witness to abuses

#196

Post by cute_boi »

NmAmDa wrote: post #99
okl wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Chinese government saying that US is being hypocrite because they did so and so in Iraq and whatever happened after 9/11 from abuses. That is an argument against abuse, not in favor. What are their arguments to support their actions?

Chinese government (propaganda) is usually deploying this logic to suppress the discussion about their actions. It is a wide spread tactic that we see everyday. It is not like china is ever interested in helping people in Iraq, Afghanistan.. they could just stop doing the same (if not worse) as a good well gesture.

I personally think China has done a great work in Afghanistan than US. They sent humanitarian aid to poor people who were never responsible for terrorism. I acknowledge that China might have their own interest, and might be some Shenanigans. Or, it might just be a marketing tactics to earn good will & gesture?

However, US freezing the whole country account is bad. This doesn't just punish few bad people, but it punishes many good people. Liberation happens through development, not through revenge & suppression.

Re: Former Xinjiang prisoner arrives in U.S. as key witness to abuses

#197

Post by tablespoon »

DigitalSea wrote: post #65

Quoted post unavailable.

> The CCP bots are in full force in the comments on this post. Whoa.

I know what you mean, but it's not bots. It's not even the real 50 cent party would waste it's time with HN. Whatever activity they have in English-language social networks is probably directed at places where there's more bang for the buck. like Twitter or Reddit.

Re: Former Xinjiang prisoner arrives in U.S. as key witness to abuses

#198

Post by cute_boi »

VictorPath wrote: post #94
DigitalSea wrote: post #65

Quoted post unavailable.

Quoted post unavailable.

And the difference between CCP bot and CIA bot can easily be recognized. CCP bots generally don't sway and entice people using words. CIA bots are very good in making specious arguments. They understand how they can imbue people with rage.

Re: Former Xinjiang prisoner arrives in U.S. as key witness to abuses

#199

Post by incomingpain »

The thing that confuses me is that China's muslim neighbours(ish) like Saudis, Pakistan or Kazakhstan support China in what they are doing.

There is greater incentive for those 3 countries to care what China is doing to fellow Muslims and they don't oppose it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinjiang_internment_camps

Re: Former Xinjiang prisoner arrives in U.S. as key witness to abuses

#200

Post by joshuahedlund »

trasz wrote: post #183
joshuahedlund wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Does the US today recognize the Japanese internment as a moral crime? Yes. Not only is it recognized as a moral crime, but the US government passed a law to give restitution to interned people. Does that clean the slate? No. Does that make it ok? No, of course not. The point is not that the US is perfect or even good. The point is that the US system allows open discussion, criticism, protest, legislating, etc. It h…

The point is that you forget all the inconvenient facts - from American national guard murdering students in broad daylight, without any kind of punishment afterwards, to secret military kangaroo courts - and build your arguments on plain ignorance ("China has none of that").

In the US, we can acknowledge those "inconvenient facts", freely discuss them, educate people about them, push for accountability for those who did them and to change policies so that they do not happen again.
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